I’ve been on a 6 month hiatus from podcasting after 150+ interviews over the previous 2 years – had a bunch of other things going and I needed to take a little break. I’ve been itching to return and was talking to my friend Barry the other day and he wanted to do another one (his 3rd) and here it is.

I’ve been on a 6 month hiatus from podcasting after 150+ interviews over the previous 2 years – had a bunch of other things going and I needed to take a little break. I’ve been itching to return and was talking to my friend Barry the other day and he wanted to do another one (his 3rd) and here it is.

This was a pure treat for me as I got to talk about the early days of Apple, reminisced about Guy’s one word email technique (I shared my 15 second voicemail rule), his other ventures such as Alltop.com and Garage.com, the state of marketing today and how to make yourself enchanting.

The biggest problem in understanding the state of housing today is the quality and timing of the information. This podcast is a review of my thoughts on the subject and why a pending home sale index tends to be better at providing the state of a housing market than price indices.

Hint: they lag the moment when buyer and seller agree on a price aka “meeting of the minds” by as much as 5 months, don’t consider the different seasons of the year and are often skewed by seasonal adjustments.

Barry is the only person I know who is described as providing “trenchant economic commentary” -(Norris/NYT) in fact, I’ve never even used “trenchant” in a sentence before now. Barry makes his 3rd visit to The Housing Helix podcast and he does not disappoint his fans for the depth of his insight.

This is an R-rated (“R” for “Ritholtz”) podcast – children, young adults, rating agencies and commercial bankers beware.

Here’s a quick and dirty recap of the Manhattan Market Overview released today that we prepare for Prudential Douglas Elliman. Audio quality is so-so because I used my iphone mic and then tried to clean it up with filters.

Our real estate lives have intersected for years. For example, I would get complimented for a presentation at the Waldorf Hotel (although he gave the speech) while he would get inquiries about the NYC co-op condo market (which I track).

He is the co-founder of Miller Ryan LLC, a firm that provides strategic marketing communications counsel to the financial services and real estate industries. He also writes over at GlobeSt.com on his Trend Czar blog.

I have made it a point to attend Mark Zandi‘s economic forecast presentations over the years and had the opportunity to meet and speak with him at the Counselors of Real Estate meeting in Philadelphia a few months ago. He graciously accepted my invitation to have a conversation with me (via Skype). In 2009 Time magazine called him The Recession’s Hot Wonk. He’s got a more optimistic outlook than consensus at the moment, but he describes his optimism in its proper context during our conversation.

]]>http://thehousinghelix.blogs.millersamuel.com/2010/12/21/interview-mark-zandi-chief-economist-moodys-analytics-author-financial-shock-paying-the-price/feed/2[Interview] Stan Humphries, Chief Economist, Zillow.comhttp://thehousinghelix.blogs.millersamuel.com/2010/12/15/interview-stan-humphries-chief-economist-zillow-com/
http://thehousinghelix.blogs.millersamuel.com/2010/12/15/interview-stan-humphries-chief-economist-zillow-com/#commentsWed, 15 Dec 2010 19:00:44 +0000Jonathan Millerhttp://thehousinghelix.blogs.millersamuel.com/?p=1781I first spoke to Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow.com last year at the Inman Conference in NYC and found him to be very engaging. Yesterday he dropped by our offices and we had a conversation on the state of the national housing market. Fun!

I get to have another conversation with Rick Sharga of RealtyTrac – this time via skype. I’ve long admired his ability to articulate the state of the US foreclosure market. We touch on foreclosure mapping, robo-signing, and a sense of where we seem to be headed foreclosure-wise.

For years I’ve watched Gary Shilling‘s media interviews on the economy and read his columns in Forbes. I ran into him recently when we were both on Bloomberg Surveillance with Tom Keene and Ken Prewitt and invited him to sit down with me and have a conversation about housing. He runs his epomonyous economic consulting firm and published a widely read newsletter called INSIGHTS.

Gary’s latest book was just released called “The Age of Deleveraging” which resides on my iPad (via Kindle app). We have an engaging discussion even though we don’t touch on his other passion, bee keeping.

I’ve often said that the terms of the transaction (including financing) are as critical as pricing in today’s tight credit environment. They say they are focused on improving transparency in the real estate transaction and are also helping consumers and realtors to be more efficient by better defining expectations.